Wednesday, November 17, 2004

What happens in the SAT truck stays. . .

Sorry for the abbreviated captions, but I'm about to drop. Enjoy the pictures and I'll add some commentary in the morning.

Heading to Vegas.

I look back on the last two days and it's all a blur. I was there for every step of the way, but it's like waking up from a wild weekend (not that I would know) and not remembering right away where you are.

Photo by Matt West. I tossed my camera out to him as I left the lot on Tuesday morning at 10:30am. I planned to meet the crew in Vegas at about 5:00pm. I knew we'd have tape to feed back to the station before 6:00pm, so the clock was ticking.

On the road, but not sure where. Dang, I should have written this stuff down. The KCAL SNG truck is also known as "Big Blue" and sometimes as "The Kidney Killer".

Hitting the strip.

Two paragraphs later and I'm there. Okay, maybe it was more involved, but the trip was uneventful. I got to Vegas about 4:45pm. That's good time, but I felt every mile of that road.

New York x2.

I was happy with this shot. Just driving through looking for the hotel and thought the angle and lens was about right. These shots need a little tweeking, but my lack of sleep was getting the better of me when I finally got to post.

Stayed at the Monte Carlo.

I didn't have my gamblin' jar with me, but they still managed to part seventy-five cents from my pockets. I threw a tantrum and got tossed from the casino. . .okay, I just thought about it. Next time, I'm going to try it just for fun. Do the Vegas jails have internet access?

Live-shot from the Vegas Strip.

The actual reason for being there? We were covering a reunion of the "Amazing Race" participants. It's funny, but I got a lot of people telling me how much they loved the show.

Recognize this couple? Think "Amazing Race".

Yes, Chip and Kim were as nice as they seemed to be on the show. Same for the bowling moms. All the Race people who were there seemed pretty nice. I didn't pick up on any bad feelings between any of them and I thought that was pretty nice.

The "Race" folks who came out for our live-shot stayed after to take pictures and nice to everyone. They even signed a few autographs and posed for pictures with some tourists who were fans of the show.

The trip back was uneventful. I had a busy day at home planned so there was not to be any rest for the weary.

Just another day at the office.

Want to know something that I find to be sort of cool, but doesn't mean anything important? The SAT truck has to stop at the highway scales. I get to line up with the 18 wheelers and waste a couple of minutes. It's a pain when I'm in a hurry, but it's just something kind of odd that most people wouldn't think about (or care about probably).

I survived another day. Nobody died to give me something to do and nothing I did caused any harm. That's good, really good. I'll be spending my overtime pay with a clear conscience. Starbucks anybody?